Daley Thompson
Daley Thompson
Francis Morgan Ayodélé "Daley" Thompson, CBE, is an English former decathlete. He won the decathlon gold medal at the Olympic Games in 1980 and 1984, and broke the world record for the event four times...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionDecathlete
Date of Birth30 July 1958
fun dark opposites
Los Angeles was great fun because it was the polar opposite of Moscow in 1980. It was sunny and bright, lots of colours around, whereas Moscow was dark and oppressive.
lying tape
The stopwatch doesn't lie. The tape measure doesn't lie.
men records world
When I lost my decathlon world record I took it like a man. I only cried for ten hours.
winning get-better
I am only about winning and getting better.
player tennis personality
There are lots of women tennis players, for instance, but because not many of them seem to have much personality, they're interchangeable. You don't have a feeling about them.
kids vegetables weight
I tend to eat vegetables only when I'm with the kids and the rest of the time, I'm a bit slack. But, I am weight-conscious, so I concentrate on avoiding junk food.
football kids hockey
But if kids take up things like hockey and football they will go back to it.
kids made situation
Ever since I was a kid, whatever situation I was presented with, I always made the most of it.
motivation heart thinking
In my heart of hearts my motivation would always have been to be the best, and I think that athletics is probably what I was built for.
sports people mind
Sport and health are so important to our nation that they deserve to be right at the front of people's minds.
sports want firsts
In sport, if you want to be the best you have to compete against the best - I would much rather have come tenth and be judged against everyone than come first and be judged against just a few.
school ambassadors
I am an education ambassador, mainly working with schools.
people quality facts
What used to drive me was the fact that I wanted to be better than everybody at something. One of my best qualities is that I used whatever other people found to be an adverse thing to be a positive thing for myself.
sports real hard-work
If you work hard in real life, people tend to get in your way - either from inertia or prejudice - and they stop you achieving things. It's the worst thing about real life compared with sports, where you generally get what you deserve: if you're the fastest guy, you win; there are no other games being played.